October Read - final thoughts on the big Mo-D.

What? They all die in the end? Someone should have warned me!

Just kidding.

Pages 601-655

Look to the horizon – it’s a bird, it’s a ship, it’s…dun, dun DUN…an OMEN. An oooooooommmmmeeeeeeen! There are lots of omens of impending doom, and then finally, on page 625, we finally spot Moby Dick. Thirty pages from the end, people. It took Ishmael over 100 pages just to get on the flipping boat, and we only get thirty pages of the most epic whale-vs-human battle in literary history. Anyway, the whale picks off crew members one by one and then takes the whole ship down. Ishmael survives and is picked up by a passing ship.

Best line: Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! [pg 622]

(The first few paragraphs of chapter 132 are also quite beautiful in their description of the sea and sky, but they were too long to type out here.)

The book has pros and cons, as does any literary classic. And so I present to you...

The Pros and Cons of Herman Melville's "Moby Dick," according to Charity:
Pros:
When you're done, you can say you've read it.
There's like some nice prose and stuff.

Cons:
The beginning (boring)
The middle (boring)
The end (only slightly less boring)

My main beef with the book (other than the boring bits) is the POV. We start out in Ishmael's first-person Point of View, but then we start jumping in and out of Ahab's head, and seeing what Ahab does alone in his cabin. By the end, Ishmael is an omniscient narrator, describing everything as though he was in every place, in everyone's head. YOU CAN'T HAVE AN OMNISCIENT FIRST-PERSON NARRATOR, HERMAN! Maybe he's trying to make some sort of point or something, but I see it as sloppy writing. If I had to rate it on a responsibility scale, it would rank only slightly higher than the narrative threads of Glee.

The book came out in the mid-1800's to mixed reviews. My favorite of the several that are printed in the back of my Barnes & Noble Classics edition is the one from January 1852, printed in the New York United States Magazine and Democratic Review:

Mr. Melville is evidently trying to ascertain how far the public will consent to be imposed upon. He is gauging, at once, our gullibility and our patience. [...] [I]f there are any of our readers who wish to find examples of bad rhetoric, involved syntax, stilted sentiment and incoherent English, we will take the liberty of recommending to them this precious volume of Mr. Melville's.

Since then, there have been many cinematic interpretations of this classic work. Perhaps my favorite can be found in two parts on that great cinematic forum, YouTube:

Part 1

Part 2

Okay, I'm done. This was the only book I finished this month, and I am okay with that. :-)

Thoughts on Twilight Vampires

Okay, so the "Twilight" series has its serious issues, not gonna lie. The plot, the character development, the exploitation of minor boys' abs - the list goes on, and I'm not going to debate all that.

What I don't get is why some Christians shun it on the basis that "vampires are blood-sucking demons," but they're okay with Wolverine, Superman, Spiderman, Mary Poppins, and a host of other supernatural characters. All these other superheros have special powers, weaknesses, and things they'd die or kill for.

I'm not saying everyone should read the "Twilight" series. I'm just saying that if you don't read them because you think that vampires are demons, you shouldn't read/watch any other stories where the main characters have supernatural abilities and odd weaknesses.

I also don't get why people shun it because "Edward and Bella have an unhealthy relationship." Ummm...ever read "Wuthering Heights"? "Romeo and Juliet"? "Jane Eyre"?

If you don't read "Twilight" because you don't want to read about an 18-yr-old falling in love with a brooding older man (or a selfish 17-yr-old), you'd have to rule out about half of the classic novels and plays kids read in school and college these days.

So...yeah. Feel free to commence throwing things.

This post has been brought to you by "Twilight" on cable television.

More on Moby

One hundred more pages down! Yayayay. This chunk seemed to go faster, because much of it was in Ahab's mind, which is perhaps the most fluid and interesting in the book. (How a first-person narrator gets into another character's mind is another question, which I may address in my closing thoughts on the book.)

Pages 501-600

Queequeg nearly dies, but decides not to. The ship meets another ship whose captain lost a limb to Moby Dick; but that captain didn’t go crazy because of it, whereas Captain Ahab gets crazier and crazier. After a particularly bad storm in which everyone nearly dies because of Ahab, the officers almost kill Ahab in his sleep but don’t because they realize they need him.

Best lines: For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And the drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all with a last revelation, which only an author from the dead could adequately tell. [pg 550]

---

The sky looks lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the unsufferable splendors of God’s throne. [pg 573]

(I think the thing that keeps me reading, is the hope that there will be more sentences like these. How a novel with such an exciting story and unbeatably beautiful prose can manage to be so boring is truly a tragedy.)

Moby Dick Continues

During the commercials of "The Office" and "Say 'Yes' to the Dress," I managed to get through another 100 pages of Moby Dick (what can I say? There was a "Say 'Yes'" marathon).

Pages 401-500

In perhaps one of the most thrilling scenes yet, the whalers are attacked by a school of whales and barely escape with their lives. Later, the cabin boy is accidentally left in the middle of the ocean while the three smaller boats go a-whaling, and the solitude and fear literally drive him insane.

Best line: Come; let us squeeze hands all around; nay, let us squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk of sperm and kindness. [pg 484]

(Ummmm...yeah. Let's do that.)

Moby Dick

I have decided not to give up on Moby Dick. How can I, a holder of a college degree in literature, allow a measly 697-page book to defeat me? I cannot - I repeat, canNOT.

So, I come armed with a cup of tea, a cozy blanket, and mad skimming skills to the book that almost schooled me.

However, I know that not all of my readers are readers of Melville and might enjoy a...ahem...condensed version, a la Charity. I am reading the Barnes & Noble Classic Edition, so feel free to follow along.

Pages 1-100

The first-person narrator, Ishmael, meets Queequeg and has many thoughts which would today be considered racist, white-dominant, bigoted, and insensitive – but for the time were probably generous, kind-hearted, and inter-culturally forward-thinking. The two strike up a bromance and decide to go to sea on the same ship.

Best line: Call me Ishmael. [pg 1]

(What can I say? It’s classic.)

Pages 101-200

While in bed together, Ishmael and Queequeg decide to go whaling. They board a ship with a mysterious captain.

Best line: La! la, ma’am! – Mistress! murder! Mrs. Hussey! apoplexy! [pg 115]

Pages 201-300

We find out that the captain, Ahab, has a heretofore unrevealed agenda: kill a white sperm whale named – you’ll never guess – Moby Dick. (Yes, I know you can figure this out from the cover, but just go with it.) Ishmael processes the symbolic meanings of the color white. Ishmael, Queequeg, and the crew find some whales, but they don’t catch any.

Best line: I am madness maddened. [pg 208]

(Actually, chapter 37 – where this quote is found – switches to Ahab’s internal monologue, and the prose is delicious. I read it five times and actually got stuck here for several months because I was loathe to get back into Ishmael’s head.)

Pages 301-400

The crew captures and kills a sperm whale. Ishmael and Queequeg’s bromance continues. Ishmael treats us to 50 pages of his thoughts about the sperm whale’s severed head. No joke: 50 pages. About the head.

Best line: Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. 

So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters. [pg 342]

(You’re not kidding me!)

Honorable mention: The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention. [pg 342]

Stay tuned for the next three installments, coming as I finish the reading. I am freshly determined (mostly by lack of nightlife in Joplin) to conquer the book by the end of 2011. Also, I have decided that heavy skimming is allowed because, well, Ishmael is boring. (Sorry, Herman, ol' chap.)

September Reads

Stand-alone book:
The Bride Collector by Ted Dekker

Middle or ending books in series:
Radiant Shadows by Melissa Marr
A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon
Extras by Scott Westerfeld

Not a shabby list for the same month that I moved, started a new job, and got cable television. :-)

September recommendation: The Bride Collector by Tedd Dekker. He gets better and better with each book, and his thrillers transcend the usual Christian fiction. While his "Circle Trilogy" disappoints me more and more with each book that comes out, his other works have been on my list of favorite books since I discovered "Heaven's Wager" in high school.

Moby Dick: I'm three months away from ditching it. There's still hope, but it dies a little with each passing month.

Of course I have a library card for Joplin, where I'm living now. Anything I should borrow over the next almost-eight weeks?